Legends of Astræa_Cupid's Arrow

by Sophia Alessandrini

  “You should have said so from the beginning,” he said to me in perfect English with an inscrutable grin on his face.

  With some relief, I knew somehow that he was going to help me. I prayed he had the answers I wanted.

  “Come in—hurry,” he urged us.

  We didn’t contest his urging. The prickliness and goose bumps we felt outside the church were too uncomfortable. I hoped that at least the church grounds would be consecrated. Once the three of us were inside, he closed the door, added a large wood bar across it, and twitched three locks. One, two, three. We were in the pitch dank dark. It took me a couple moments to adjust my eyes.

  This brought me to a question. What was so valuable to vault in?

  “So what do we have here?” he asked, directing his gaze toward Gavril and taking us by surprise with his question. We remained quiet for a pregnant moment. How was it possible for a blind man to see my pet? I read somewhere that many blind people had overdeveloped their other senses, like the olfactory, to compensate. Many others had evolved using an extra sense that allowed them to see beyond normal perception, almost like Demyan, Francis, and I did. If he was using this mind sense, did he sense Gavril as a mere animal or a werewolf?

  “Can you help me?” I asked him, deterring him from the subject.

  “That I can,” he said, motioning his hand to follow him. He carried a long, twisted, and skinny stick. Not a cane but more like a polished branch. He moved so fast for a blind man, that we pressed our step to keep up with him in the dark. Gavril was the only one with the power to see in the pitch dark.

  So, I followed him, and Francis followed me.

  “Ah, forgive me. I forget you need the light,” he apologized, turning on a hand flashlight.

  He handed it to Francis, then bent to pet Gavril.

  “You have the gift, just like Saint Francis of Assisi,” he told me and turned on his heels.

  I turned my inquiring gaze to Francis. Was this blind man capable of seeing more than he should? If so, did he know we weren’t human?

  The tunnel was squatty, long, and dark, and the flashlight the monk gave us casted just enough light to see where we stepped. The darkness swallowed most of the light. The echoes of water drips and dampness permeated the air inside the tunnel.

  Heavy wood beams held the tunnel from caving in as they did in mines. I had the strong suspicion they were rotten and about to fall apart because of the saturated dampness. The floors were viscous and slippery wet from the filtration of underground water. It was evident that a large aquifer ran underground next to the visibly deteriorated tunnel. I hoped the tunnel wouldn’t cave in while we were visiting. Why hadn’t there been any repairs? Something was awfully fishy here. It made me wonder why we had agreed to come in so easily.

  I was wondering the same thing, Gavril muttered, complaining at my recklessness. The air felt like Francis’s basement—his cellar as he called it. It was colder inside but not freezing, which was fine by me, particularly when the layers of clothing felt too warm. As we strode after the monk, I felt a drip of moisture run down my back underneath all my clothes.

  We stopped at the sight of a forked entrance with three different tunnels. The one in the middle had a heavy, large, old iron gate. The monk pulled a large chain with an open lock by the wall and did the oddest thing. He slipped the chain between the iron bars of the doors and closed the heavy lock. Francis and I exchanged wondering glances again. The monk pulled a ring with keys out of his robes and hung them on a giant nail on the wall. Why would someone close a door with a chain and a large lock, and leave the keys for anyone to open?

  However, as he hung the keys, the rusted nail made a deep scratch in his hand. He murmured prayers that sounded more like cursing. We approached him. He held his hand, evidently in pain.

  “The cut will infect in this environment. Do you have any disinfectant?” Francis asked.

  “Not here, but those nails have tetanus. My blood will be infected by the time I clean the wound, and I am allergic to the shot. I will die,” he said, accepting his fate.

  I couldn’t let this man die, not when he was the one who could give me answers. I wouldn’t, even if I had to show off my healing powers to Francis or the crazy monk. Francis knew my body could heal, but he didn’t know I was capable of healing another being. There were still so many things among us that had not been discussed. I think he was waiting for me to trust him more. I had grown up used to avoiding that kind of confession. Mother Clarisse had been quite adamant to never trust anyone. The few times I’d accidently exposed myself got me in a whole lot of trouble. I was still willing to risk it one more time.

  “May I see it?” My tone of voice sounded innocent.

  The monk offered his hand, and I took it into mine. I prayed this would work. I prayed his wound would be healed, and as I did, green glowing tendrils of energy played capriciously over my arms and hands into his hand. Hoping he couldn’t see them since he was blind, I applied the healing power. His cut disappeared. An ominous silence followed. Only the echoing drip-drip sounds throughout the tunnels, mixed with our breathing, filled the stagnant musty air. I waited for him to say something or anyone to do something.

  “Ah, the voices are back.” He shook his head and covered his ears. Voices? “I did what you asked, now leave me alone,” he shouted.

  I exchanged glances with Francis again, feeling confused. Was he telling us off? Suddenly, he regained his composure.

  “Thank you, child,” he said to me, deflecting us from asking him a very awkward question, like what voices? Or, should we go? He flexed his hand and didn’t seem surprised, perhaps too accepting, which made us a tad more suspicious of him. Then without saying any more, he strode into the first tunnel on the right—the one without a locked gate. We followed him, unsure of the path we took, since we all thought it was odd not to take the tunnel with the closed gate instead.

  Unless he is expecting unwelcome guests, Gavril said.

  So he closes the door he doesn’t want them to see, leaves a key, but lets everyone come through our path instead? I was confused.

  Gavril snorted. At this point, we had no choice but to follow him. The last thing we wanted was to get lost.

  Unless he wants exactly that. He wants unwelcome guests to break through that gate, Gavril said.

  Seriously, you’ve hung out with Francis too long. Cut down on the criminal TV series. Besides, I think he is a little loco in the head.

  “Make sure you step close to the left wall,” the monk warned us as we continued our discounted vacation to this strange and unbefitting place. The right wall had been precariously held by more wood beams, and if one was too careless, those beams could knock your head or trip your feet.

  I wondered what in the world a blind monk was doing in a place like this. It felt as if we were inside the murky long throat of some monstrous mythological monster. It wasn’t suitable or safe to walk around in, more so since he was blind. Something was amiss here.

  Are you having the same claustrophobic feeling as I am? I asked Gavril.

  Uh-hum.

  The odd monk continued striding in the dark and into what seemed a complex labyrinth of tunnels and chambers. How long are these tunnels? I wondered. They seemed to go for miles under the city.

  We reached a larger cavern, a catacomb at first sight. There, the monk tried to push a large circular rock standing against the wall. Francis tried to help him without success. I joined them, but it was a fruitless effort.

  “It is too heavy,” Francis said.

  We all sighed in defeat. The stone indeed was too heavy for us to move.

  “It has been centuries since anyone was last here, but all your answers are inside,” the monk promised.

  A little help from my powers wouldn’t hurt at this point. He was blind. By simple deduction, he wouldn’t know if I did.

  “Let’s try again, Francis.” I winked at him, hoping he would agree to my suggestion. He had seen me move books in the a
ir. Moving the large rock was pretty much the same, except he didn’t know that. Only Mother Clarisse had seen me move heavy things, to which she asked me never to do again, after I had moved her entire desk up in the air when I was barely seven years old.

  The funny part was that it seemed more difficult to lift or move the smaller things than it did the large heavy ones.

  “All right. Let us try again.” Francis nodded back.

  I placed my hands on the rock but used my mind instead. The rock slid easily, opening another antechamber room. I stood there feeling like we shouldn’t step inside unless the monk was with us.

  “So what is this place?” I asked him.

  The crazy monk stepped inside first, but one couldn’t be careless. I kept my hand on the basket, ready. We surveyed the antechamber. It was empty and non-threatening at first glance. But was it? The monk waited for us to step in next to the wall contiguous to the rock we had just moved.

  As Francis and Gavril stepped in with me, the crazy monk pulled a hidden lever on the wall and made the rock slide on its own. I gasped. The rock couldn’t be opened from the outside. Someone had to do it from the inside—it didn’t make sense. It felt like a trap.

  Instantly, Francis and I exchanged suspicious glances, realizing I had been tricked into using my powers a second time. I knew by now Francis’s hand was on his dagger like mine was on the crossbow.

  “Don’t worry, you are safe here if you are wondering,” the crazy monk said, calming us down.

  So, too much TV, eh? Gavril made his point.

  Chapter 25

  “You made us move that rock.” I accused the monk, looking at his hand on the lever. Francis had adopted his ready-to-kill posture since he’d entered the antechamber.

  “I was testing you.” The monk pointed directly at me with a humorous tone in his voice. And for life of me, I couldn’t figure out what was so amusing to him. He was one step from being part of the catacombs permanently.

  “And?” I dared him to come clean. I hated being tested.

  “No worries. You passed it with flying colors. It is the next tests that should worry that head of yours,” he forewarned me. More tests.

  “That’s it. I am leaving,” I announced. I had enough with the creepiness of our tour guide. I had memorized the route, so I wasn’t going to get lost. I knew Francis wasn’t going to get lost either, and Gavril, well if anyone could find his way out, that would be him with his large nose.

  “I don’t think it is wise for any of us to wander back into those tunnels,” the crazy monk said. Francis held my arm gently, preventing me from moving the lever. I looked at Francis with questioning eyes, but he had a narrowing glare for the monk. He wasn’t happy at all.

  “I’ve seen a similar mechanism before. If opened a second time from inside, it would bring total destruction,” Francis said, giving us his educated assessment. Crap.

  He means the crank monk has set us up, and those tunnels will cave in if we step outside this cave. Gavril growled at the crazy monk, who’d made us step into a booby trap. Crap.

  “Ah, Francis of Saint Palais, you should have never brought her here.” The monk had called him by his name. Friend or foe? How in the world was a blind monk able to know who was inside that nun outfit? Certainly, Francis would have said something if he’d met the crazy monk before. Right?

  Hum, the same way he could see you or me inside the dark tunnels. Gavril had a point. He wasn’t a blind monk as he pertained to be, but then again, we were also disguised.

  Without hesitation, Francis threw a dagger at him, which cut through the air with fatal accuracy. The monk stopped it in midair less than an inch from his face with his bare praying hands. I swore I stopped breathing. I knew the crazy monk was testing his good luck with Francis. He was lucky to be alive, babbling fool.

  “You are getting rusty, Francis,” he mocked. No one, and I mean no one, should ever, ever mock Francis.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  His gaze turned to me with a wicked grin, returning the dagger to his rightful owner in a small simple gesture.

  “He is Émil, the Templar,” Francis explained. But his mind said, Only he could stop such strike. My old friend. “I should have known it was you,” Francis told him.

  Friend? Oh, fantastic. The crank was his friend.

  Francis needs to be more selective, Gavril complained, after listening to Francis’s thoughts too. Why couldn’t my life be less complicated.

  “It has been too long,” Francis said to Émil. He was wondering about his friend’s past.

  “Yes, after the last crusade, I was burnt out as a templar, just as I am now.” He paused, looking at me. “I came here, became a hermit, cultivated, and lived simple, taught the ways of godliness. Then, I was gifted with a vision, actually several visions.” He sighed with some disbelief in his voice. “And here you are now.” He directed his last comment at me.

  He was a Templar, a real knights Templar and a very old Strzyga. Émil broke the short silent pause.

  “Introductions later. Now, we don’t have too much time left. If we are lucky, thirty—fifty minutes tops.” He grabed the flashlight back from Francis. “But since you all are here, enjoy the tour,” he told us, as if we were on good terms. As if he had done nothing wrong, like bury us alive under an entire granite-crumbling mountain.

  “Why?” I asked him, but he interrupted my suspicions and chided me as if I was the one who had done something wrong.

  “Because, because, because.” He pointed his finger up in the air just before he started a different conversation. “Ah, yes. The voices again,” he said, turning his intense focus on me now. I stepped back slightly. “Because you shouldn’t be here. I was hoping you wouldn’t ever step at my door. Mother Clarisse had clear instructions to keep you safe and away from this place. Everyone has been waiting for you to show up here, and now they will be knocking at my door very soon.” He pointed his finger at me, upset.

  I swallowed hard. It was true. Her letter had clearly begged me not to come. In fact, she had asked me to join the order instead. Wait—Who is everyone?

  I told you so. Gavril snarled softly, agreeing with Émil despite our entrapment. In Gavril’s opinion, all of this was a waste of time from the beginning. I shouldn’t be here. Instead, I should be at the palace for some ill-advised reason I didn’t understand. Time and time over again, I’d told him it was too risky. But he was so set up in finding the prince all the time, that by now I have learned to tune him out.

  “Who?” Francis asked.

  “Does it really matter? They all want her for different reasons and all the same. You are the legend,” the monk said, pointing his finger at me.

  I gasped. “What legend?” I asked Émil.

  Francis frowned and didn’t offer further explanations, and Gavril kept oddly silent.

  “Follow me.” He turned on his heels and led the way. We had no choice but to follow him again.

  “Did you know Mother Clarisse very well?” I asked him after a long moment.

  “Never met her,” he said. What? “However, we corresponded often,” he explained. So… Oh. My. God.

  “You are Father Dominique.” A tad late, my educated guess told me he was Strzyga, immune to tetanus, and not exactly blind. He had lied. Monks didn’t lie. Did they?

  “Quite good you are.” He didn’t deny it. He was Father Dominique, a.k.a. Émil. We continued into another complicated set of tunnels. We noted these tunnels were dry, taller, spacious, and in great shape. They didn’t need the use of wood retainers. We reached another large cave, but as soon as we stood at the threshold, Émil the Templar stopped us.

  “Make sure you walk against the left wall, never step near the center of the cave if you want to live,” he warned us—again. It seemed like a solid floor, I wondered why we couldn’t step.

  A total crackpot case, Gavril complained, yet he never ventured his paws away from the left wall until we reached yet another tunnel and another
forked entrance. We took the right entrance again and stepped inside a circular antechamber.

  “I call this one the cathedral,” Émil said, illuminating the arched well-carved sides with thirty-foot-tall Doric columns, like the ones I had seen in history books with pictures of the Parthenon and Athena’s Temple in Greece. Each section of the cathedral’s dome was decorated with a fresco which matched the size and shape of the single round-headed arch carved under it. The frescoes were intended apparently for contemplative purpose, and they had a pale, serene, unearthly beauty.

  “Do you see the painting over there?” Émil’s flashlight pointed at one of the sliced sections of the dome.

  High up, very high, I saw beautiful frescoes, like the ones I had seen in books. St. Mary’s had a large collection of books with beautiful pictures of Vatican art and books on the master artists of the early Renaissance to the late fourteenth century that we studied during Art History. The fresco was probably from the same period. The style was like something the same Raphael would have had painted. I recalled Sister Angeline’s art history classes. They were never boring. She saw beauty and magic in everything. She was one of the youngest and most dynamic Sisters St. Mary’s had seen but left as a missionary for South America a year ago. Francis had taken her spot to teach literature.

  This painting reflected the beauty of a woman in veils of light reaching for the stars with one hand and the weight of justice in the other—a Greek goddess with long, silvery-white hair. Instinctively, my attention was drawn to the signum on her left shoulder sprouting into her arm, just like mine. Impossible.

  “Yes, I do see it,” I said, feeling a little flutter inside me, wishing with all my heart(s) that the next words had nothing to do with me.

  “It is the personification of Astræa,” Francis muttered more to himself rather than for us to hear.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so good. Apparently, he had been holding onto some important information—again. I gave him a furtive glance, feeling the need to clutch myself. He winced his eyes and cursed under his breath, somewhat apologetic to me. I tightened my fists and slowly shook my head at him. Then I turned my gaze back to the frescos.